I'm Gay and very Happy!

This is it!

I'm done with people constantly asking me whether I'm gay. Dude are you gay? Are you interested in me in that sense? Obviously not! you are just surprised by all the LGBTQ posts that keep cropping up in my wall. I mean my friend posts cute cat videos...so she must be a cat in disguise! (Or maybe she has a cat fetish of sorts...)

There are people who are just difficult to communicate with. I generally just avoid explain this to them cause obviously they are just too flabbergasted by the "irony" of it all: she's straight and she posts all those gay stuffs, all the time on fb! Like, how is it even possible!

But then there are people who are like, stop making a hue and cry about it! by making such a hullabaloo you are not allowing the gays to "blend" well with our society! What exactly do you mean with "blend"? Cause although you intentions are but good, your "blend" sounds more like "conform". And while you are doing your bit by not raping people, not judging folks on the basis of their sexual orientation, you really are not making any difference. And you are also not doing any favour on society either!

And in case you have not noticed, gays are already paying shit to "blend" with society. They are cases of ragging in colleges which leads to suicides. And it's all because some seniors have "found out" that the kid is a "gay". The LGBTQ population in India, at least are suffering from a severe identity crisis. And maybe some gays do not want to "blend" in with the society! They like cross dressing which might come across as too loud for your taste. They like screaming out that they are gay. Big Deal! And maybe they do not like having to spell it out to every other person. Maybe they like to keep their gender-identity discreet. But they definitely do not like to be silenced out! Nobody does! To pretend that everything is okay when it clearly isn't. And  the thing that is not okay is not their sexuality, but other's reactions to their being gay.

Has it ever occurred to you why we do not have "straight" fb pages? Cause we do not freaking need them. And why do we not just introduce ourselves as straights? Because we do not need them. A guy looks at you and assumes you are straight. It's not even like , he/she bypasses  your gender. Whenever you meet someone, you are actually assessing his gender along with his other character traits and you might not even realise this, but you are! Have you ever felt the need to introduce yourself as ,"hello, I'm straight!"? For you, your name was enough. Well, then imagine how much a person has to have gone through to have to introduce himself/herself as "gay" no matter how proudly he/she does so. That pride is something that he has to choose. And although you might not cringe when you see an apparent gay, others do! and those "others" out-number you by a huge , really huge number. And more than half the folks in LGBTQ fb groups are still living incognito. So there you are __they are blending with the society at the cost of gender-identity  crisis. When you like a "Dexter" Fb page, you do not have to hide that fact from most people in the non-virtual world.

I am not gay , and I do not know the terms and sometimes I do not even know the science behind it. But do I really need a special pass to be able to speak for them? and when I speak for LGBTQ rights, I am in no way trying to segregate them or section them. You know every time I use the word them , I am not implying a me-against-them thing. And neither am I implying that they are a different species altogether. But they need to be heard!

If every white person during the apartheid days felt that it was none of their business, then there would never have been a anti- apartheid  movement. Women empowerment in a all-female society does not exist just like Black liberation in an all black society does not exist! LGBTQ movement is not just theirs. They are already in terms with their sexuality. Those that are yet to come out of the closet will eventually do! but that closet is  built by us! We are part and parcel of the same society! Pretending that everything is okay in the LGBTQ scene and that they deliberately exaggerate things, coz you are okay with their sexuality and do not want to hear of it, is just turning a deaf ear to their plight.

Remember when AIDS awareness was on, how parents and people in general would cringe at the S-word? Well, you do not have unprotected sex, so you do need to talk about AIDS. You are just very happy minding your own business and criticizing those that voice their opinions against the obvious injustice that prevails around your cocooned sanctuary . And before some of you  jump into conclusions of me comparing homosexuality to a sexually transmitted disease, NO I'm not! But ignoring the social plight of LGBTQ people is like a socially transmitted disease! But then they say ignorance is bliss after all!

I know and I sincerely admit that I am fortunate enough to never have to go into a closet or come out of it. And I'll never know what it feels like no matter how much empathise with my LGBTQ folks. But that those not mean that I just overlook the closet! And the truth is that it is only too easy, with all my straight privileges, to pretend LGBTQ away.

And if by posting this I come across as a "liberal wannabe show-off", so be it!

Goodbye summer breeze...

Okay, so it's been a really long time since I've written something. I know , I know, I had promised myself to maintain this blog, if not for anything else than for regularising my self-imposed super irregular yet mundane life.
I had gone to Shillong last month. It was a 10 day going-home trip. And like all going-home trips, it was over too soon...I had planned to gorge on kilos of sausages and bacon but my body could not not live up to my expectations. The shopping was goooooooood! I am still basking in the post-shopping glory!("Awesome shirt, yaar! This too, from Shillong?")
Oh, but the Shillong I had come from is fast disappearing into thin air! Every time I go back to Shillong I see a little more of it eaten away. The trees are almost gone, so now they are doing away with the hills, like, literally! Whole hills are being chopped off, clawed at, disintegrated into cement or whatever you call it. The weather is humid: something it had never been in the past years. Summers are actually hot! Goodbye the lovely spring summer climate. Goodbye the crisp, dry summer air. Welcome humidity. Welcome heat. Welcome perspiration.
 It probably began with the shifting of the wettest place on earth from Cherrapunjee to Mausynram... The woods behind my house has been rapidly thinning( like, faster than the hair on my scalp and I have a balding patch)!
They are building a four-lane connecting Guahati to Shillong. It will make the puke-ridden, four-hour Shillong-Guahati trip more comfortable for motion sickness patients like me. Ofcourse, they are building the 4 lanes for better connectivity, better trade, etc, etc. Talks of building a railway station are going on. Again better trade. It'll cut down the transport cost.

But I prefer to puke my way through a seven-hour trip any day to the bald railway station that Shillong is on its way to becoming.

"Who're the little kids now?"

A couple of days back, I came across this really cute comic strip by Yale Stewart revolving around 8-year-old DC comic super heroes! It's called JL8 (JL as in Junior League) .

I was never into comics. Mom had bought us a couple of comics when we were kids(batman, Chacha Choudhury, Justice League and the like). But I never got the hang of it.But this little strip is just awesome. And if you know some background about the iconic Justice League characters, you are going to enjoy it even more. But that's okay if you are not the super-hero-comic type. You can still relate to the characters afresh!

The plot revolves around 8 little superkids: Batman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, J'onn J'onzz and among the girls we have, Diana and Wonder girl. Dont worry if you dont no anyone but Batman and Superman. I also hardly knew about Lantern, J'onzz, Wonder Girl, etc. And obviously some of the incidents(well, most of it!) never really took place in their original stories... but no matter what, you'll definitely love the new plot. There are big nana-robbing goons, kiddy crushes, classroom fights, ponies and so much more! Thank you Yale for creating this sweet thing!

My favourite is Bruce a.k.a. Batman. He obviously has to strive extra hard since he does not have any real super power unlike the rest. Probably why he is always sulking. But makes up for it with his gadgets. The Batman-Superman relationship is also done up so well. It's awesome how a comic strip revolving around elementary school kids could bring out so much!

And the characters are so cute-looking! they look like the European version of chibi-anime( I dunno what you call that style..) You know the one where they are about 2 and a half heads tall. And the head is rounder. And those big round eyes that exude cuteness! If only I could squeeze the hell out of those kids!

Of Online Shopping (and endless gullibility) ....

About 5 days ago, I had my first real encounter with online shopping. It happened in the form of a tiny ad in the side bar of my fb page. It was this irresistibly absurd offer of a pair of Austin Polo watches with a "90% off" sale which rounded up to 230 bucks for the pair. Now, I am not much of a shopper, and as far as watches are concerned, that too men's watches, I'm pretty clueless about design issues. But the offer was like abnormal. And thanks to modern day's C.O.D. (Cash On Delivery), I really thought I did not have much to loose as far as a trial was concerned.

The plan was to gift my bf the watch(es) if they ever arrived, which I had seriously doubted in the first place. The process was neat and simple. In fact I was regularly guided throughout the approximated 5 day shipping duration with alerts, smses and email verifications. Considering how skeptical I am about online shopping, I must say I was impressed... and excited too.

And when it finally did arrive, my first online-bought pair of Austin Polo, it was such a HUGE disappointment! Granted, I did not expect genuine stuff at such a cheap price, but you can't help that tingling feeling, that heightened expectation when you get your first online courier.

My hands automatically slipped into my pocket and started dialing my boy-friend's number.


K..., I just bought a watch for you!

WHAT! You are CRAZY! How much did they cost?! WHY did you buy!

About a thousand bucks :P(ofcourse I lied. I mean they were on a flat-ninety-percent sale...so their original price must have been that :P)

OMG! YOU CRAZY GIRL! WHY DID YOU BUY A WATCH WORTH 1000 BUCKS!!!



The "glass cover" of the watch looked like it was glued on to the watch with some sasta adhesive. The "leather" strap refused to bend without showing signs of an imminent crack. Basically for a watch worth 100 bucks, they were good. But for a Austin Polo that was supposed to be more than a grand it was shit. And to top it all, I had, like an idiot, already informed my boy-friend about my "awesome" buy.

Without a second thought, I gifted the two watches to my office boys. They were elated. And seeing them, I too felt less cheated. That was the only good that came out of the whole online experience: the expression on my office boys' faces.

When I called up my bf again to inform him that I had gifted the watches instead to the office boys, he must have got the shock of his life. Remember, they were worth a "1000" bucks, chuckle!


 Tum *baklol ki natin ho! (it's a slang meaning 'grand-daughter of an idiot')



Oh, and when I re-checked the stupid site, I realised they were selling "Ustin Polo" (not Austin Polo) watches worth 4 grand at that ridiculously low 90 percent flat discount.

Shikayatein.... Yet another coincidental copy

I just checked out the music of Lootera . I loved all the tracks so far. A little more digging left me disappointed .

You must have seen the trailer of Lootera? It's this upcoming Anurag Kashyap movie starring Ranvir singh and Sonakshi. Looks very promising, although when I first saw the trailer I had just seen Barf. Naturally, it looked uncannily similar to Barfi (the bike accident, the West Bengal location setup, the bong leading lady, the puranne-zamane-ki-kahini feel etc). But that was then. When i saw it several months later, it didnt look like a Barfi. But what remained was the theme score. I had loved it then too.

 Today, while I was trying to download some really nice songs from this movie, I figured that the background score, the one in the trailler is from this song Shikayatein , which unfortunately is uncannily similar too the title track of an english movie called One Day composed by Rachel Portman. It's a beautiful violin piece. The Bollywood version consists of a nice blend sitar and drums along with the violin thing.  :( Boy am I disappointed ! The director even tried to provide justification for the "coincidence" which I would have bought if I hadn't heard the original myself. Here's hoping that the movie plot is atleast an original.

The good thing is that it lead me to a nice sounding film, One Day. The trailer looks nice and the comments too seems to be pointing towards that.

The Betrayal

Saturday, I went to watch Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani with my bf. This was the first time that I had pre-booked the tickets. My love affair with Ranbir started with Wake up Sid and went on to grow with Rocket Singh and Barfi...There were stupid wannabe movies like Anjani Anjani which I have to admit I loved(at that time) mostly because I was in the madly-in-lurvve phase after Wake Up Sid...

But the Wake Up Sid hangover can last for only so long. You have to keep making movies like that to fuel that sort of love/admiration, etc... And he did that. There was Rocket Singh. That was the first time I liked a Sikh protagonist. And the recent Barfi. Oh-my-god-he's-so-cute!!! How was I to suspect his disastrous betrayal in YJHD?!

I have always liked guys first for their character and then their looks.. When Sawariya had released, there were many who were crazy for him...not me, uh-uh! I hated his sleepy eyes which made him look like a girl with a dick, not that I have issues with that. I am just not into gora-chitta guys who look so effeminate. And his nose is too long. That was before I saw Wake Up Sid o'corse! And that too I had watched coz of Konkona. I didn't expect the surprise Ranbir pakage. Anyways, I fell for Ranbir's Sid hook, line and sinker. There were ups and downs...The disastrous Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani_ A movie that made absolutely no sense. But then he made up for it with Rocket Singh. There was that Anjana Anjani with that irritating character of Priyanka yap-yapping away through out the movie. I still liked it coz of Ranbir. I mean there was the casual expectation of a typical bollywood movie which it overcame.

But Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani was just not anticipated. I mean I knew K Jo would want to ruin the movie, what with his larger-than-life sets and melodramatic climaxes. But after Wake Up Sid which was also a produce of Dharma Productions survived the Kjo effect. To cut the long story short YJHD was a down market miss-mash of Love Aajkal and WakeUp. Deepika has to spell it out to the audience that she's a "simple girl"(her character is that unconvincing!!!). What she means is that she's the nerd who's never got a decent guy to go to prom night with. But her costume doesn't go with her character. I know simple girls can wear cleavage revealing clothes ... I get that and mind you I am a fan of Deepika too, but in YJHD she just looked like a girl desperate to prove to the world that she has a pair of boobs. Like, I get it You are busty/sexy or whatever it is that you want to be, you don't have to rub it in, girl! As for Ranbir, he just didnt know what he was doing and neither did the audience. You cant relate to anything in the movie, the friendship of four buddies, the cameo dad-son -step-mom relationship, the "simple" girl or the vagabond Ranbir... The screenplay does not give enough time to the audience to digest or register anything. The second half looks like a continuation of another movie. The first half itself looks like several movies scrap-booked together, hence the feeling of disorientation from scene to scene. My crush on Ranbir is over and done with thanks to this movie. I cant trust Ayan Mukherjee anymore to make movies like Wake Up.

And Ranbir is once again that girly guy with sleepy eyes, the kind that makes him look gay and a bit drug-addicted(no i am not anti-gay...I'm just heterosexual and it is natural for me to not be sexually attracted to guys who look effeminate )

Queen of Dreams

Most of my weekends are spent rather uneventfully, in monochromatic shades of my bedroom palette...
I dread weekends. Try as I might , I always end up waking up in time. If I force myself to lay in bed, it gives me a head ache, but that could be the gastric too. I have nothing to look forward to on a Saturday. All my friends have their office to go to. Not to mention, the heat- its stiffling! I do not have an internet connection. And my lappy is just not in the condition, even if I had net access.

My irregular blog posts must have atleast made my laziness very evident. So I spend my weekends wishing it away...
Well, it's not all that melodramatic, but you get the point, right?
I do end up meeting my bf in the evening when his office is done...
But this last weekend, I discovered this book rental service in my neighborhood. They do home delevery of the books. Just the thing for lazy arse-holes like me! The outlet itself didnt have much to show off("They are just a sample, mam") with most of them being Mills and Boons, though the online portal claims too have above fifty thousand. Anyways , I picked myself a Chitra Divakaruni, "Queen of Dreams"
So far, I had read two of her books:  The Palace of Illusions and One Amazing Thing.
I loved The Palace of Illusions. One Amazing Thing, however left me drifting towards the end... I kept waiting, wanting for a conclusion which never came. But then that's just my way of interpreting it.
So when I saw this one in the rental house, I was a bit skeptical about it. But then I did not have much of a choice, what with all the M&Bs on display and everyone deserves a second chance...

But this one too was like Amazing Thing... Her writings are no doubt good... but they paint this really mystical picture of India...One of sadhus, tantras, spices, magic, myth...And lets face it, no matter how amazing it would be if India really was just that, it's hard to relate to that India when you are living in the heart of a metro city in India, with its noise, pollution, gossip and just about everything that is in stark contrast to subtlety, pixie dust, folklore let alone dream interpreters.

The Queen of Dreams is based in America. It is about this woman called Rakhi whose mother can read dreams. Her mother has sort of always lived her life in duality, never able to commit herself fully to either her family or her 'dream gods '. Rakhi, a mom herself, has to deal with a broken marriage and a dying business.
In the midst of all these, her mother jumps of a bridge. Rakhi, is left with nothing but  a couple of her mother's diaries to explain why her mother's inexplicable ways. In the backdrop is the World trade Center Attack.

On the whole, it was a good read. But what i didn't like was its loose ending... it was not an open ending, mind you. Although that is what the author must have intended.Both her books, Amazing and Dreams had this distant NRI p.o.v. India. And although I must admit, that That India is way more fascinating than the India I live in, it is precisely why I cant buy it...It's like looking at the moon and imagining a lady's face in it.

The India where dream interpreters exist in hidden mountain caves in some forbidden land is fine with me. But when you try to make it too abstract to make out any meaning out of it, the story looses its pace. But that could also be, cause I am not a very patient reader.( I never got around to liking Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist).

The parts which talk of her mother's diary excerpts are just too slow. And then when you are supposed to find out meaning out of mundane dreams of ancient kings, that's the part I found exceptionally boring to read. The problem with Chitra's writing (or rather, my reading) is that when I come across these stretched out parts in her books, it just tends to lead me on to a conclusive ending which sadly never comes( atleast not in the last two books that I've read of hers).

But I 'm not giving up on Chitra as yet. And apart from her loose ends and stretched out bits of mysticism, I do not have much to complain about. not when it saved my weekend from being wasted in bed

Btw, the illustration is by Kaushik:)

The many priviledges of being "stressed"

So since you are uncertain about your future like most of us are at this age...(granted you are more than the privileged few) so you have sole proprietary right to being commitment-phobic, but I cant have performance anziety...

You can have the exclusive right to say something and mean something else...but I cant be hurtful without meaning to...coz you are the one stressed out while I have everything arranged in a platter(?)

You can talk bout "your" things and I AM genuinely interested in them but the moment i talk of something other than just office gossip you don't have the time to participate in the conversation , cause that would involve you actually conversing and not just bypassing  my office-woe rants. You have deadlines to meet afterall...

I am sorry my ambitions allow me to take life easier than yours do...and I AM NOT undermining either of our capabilities, but I am not responsible for your industry being tough on you. I cant be sorry bout getting lucky or for enjoying something "less creatively challenging" than yours...

From where I'm standing right now, you seem to be getting the better deal, what with the liberties of losing your temper, being impatient and last but not the least, not being a "good listener" (when you are not the kind of person who speaks much to begin with)...

redolence

Just bumped into this ancient thing while trying to help my office colleague create one blog of her own. God I was so naive back then! The last post I had written was when I was in class 12, 2008!!!
I did not even know what exactly one is supposed to do with a blog back then. I just knew that you had to have one. It was a new thing, a new trend, rather, and I had to be a part of it. Lol! i got this "lol" habit out of this itself. I could never get rid of it...

its so stupid.LOL!

I broke the gas regulator. lol!

Mom blasted me. lol!

I did that ...LOL

lol lol lol

Anyways, I tried real hard to continue blogging. I mean it couldn't be more difficult than writing a diary. And although I maintained my personal diaries at that time, I just didn't know what to write about in blogs. Even today, I am writing this out of pure nostalgia. What I would give to go back to those days when life was just about to begin. I was not yet 18. Numerous possibilities...
And career was all bout passing the "final exams"! "Online" was always in cyber cafes (our broadband was pathetic and always gave out when i needed it the most). And fun was the three of us chatting away while walking down one of those Laitumkhrah lanes, back in Shillong...

Life was simple back then

But my blogging attempt never caught on. And eventually it died a painless silent death.(lol)
I think what I found most difficult about blogging was that i somehow felt i had to write it like a diary...something personal and yet it would be public for all to see. The idea itself was so conflicting. Ofcourse i had no idea what really blogging is. And ever since that forgotten 'death', I never got back to figuring it out, but today when i came across the 'dead blog', it felt as alive as ever. And all those snuffed up memories  just came gushing back...
So I have decided to yet again try and maintain this even if only for a few days, so that years later when I read what I have written today, I again get to inhale the same redolence of yesteryears that I smelt today...